The Preparation H Incident

Before I get into what happened, let me start at the beginning. We had a rough month. The kids had the flu and double ear infections. One also had strep. We went through weeks of high fevers, doctors visits and zero sleep for mommy. Once they were finally better, my husband got sick. Cue single mom status as he recovered. Let me just take a moment to hug single moms. I mean, you guys absolutely rock. Seriously, you should hold your heads high every single day. Ok, so we’ve established that I’m seriously sleep deprived and barely functioning on coffee alone. It was bad. I stumbled around the days with wide caffeine eyes. I found myself staring at a wall wondering what day it was more than once. I need sleep to function, ok?

During this time, I woke up one morning with giant dark circles under my eyes. I was able to cover it up with makeup, but it hurt my heart. The next morning, the dark circles brought friends to the party. They’re called bags. Let me tell you, bags are party poopers. I could push the swollen skin and it was like a clear marshmallow. Nope, not happening. I’d read long ago a trick for this. It was to rub Preparation H on it. You know, the cream for hemorrhoids? I thought it sounded crazy, but it stuck with me. I also typically research things, probably too much, but there was no time. This was urgent. I got the wipes instead.

They had aloe, that should be soothing, right?

I ripped the package open and wiped like my life depended on it. I waited a few minutes. No burning, no reaction and the marshmallow bags began to go down. It worked! It really was a miracle beauty tip! Happy with myself, I put on makeup and went about my day. I felt like I had a hidden secret all day. I had butt wipes on my face and nobody else knew. Nobody else would ever know.

Afterall, that’s pretty embarrassing stuff.

By that night I’d forgotten all about my little adventure and went to bed. The next morning my right eye felt funny. I looked in the mirror and it was red and puffy. Still forgetting the booty beauty hack I thought it was just allergies and put ice on it. By lunch it was fine. Skip to the following morning, and just to give you a visual, let’s go back to an older movie. Hitch. Have you seen it? I love Will Smith and Kevin James, so I love the movie. Anyway, Will Smith eats something that he’s allergic to and his whole face swells up. He’s horrified when he sees it. That’s how I felt. Both eyes were red and puffy. The dark circles and marshmallows also returned. I couldn’t stop looking at it. It was like a strange science experiment. I sprang into action and started packing ice on my face. It looked like I was attempting to cryogenically preserve my head. I went through phases of packing ice and running to the mirror to see if it was helping. Panicking, I finally showed my husband. He said it didn’t look that bad. Realizing he hadn’t put in his contacts yet I got really close to his face. “Oh wow.” That’s all he said. I looked like a Shar Pei puppy met a bee, and that’s all he can say?

Back to the ice.

I hadn’t even realized the itching yet. Once I settled down a bit, I realized my eyelids were itching. Not just itching but burning, they were on fire. I knew I shouldn’t scratch them, so I pretended to scratch. Holding my fingers inches away and moving them like I was clawing my eyes out. I couldn’t take benadryl. I had small kids to care for all day and I’m a medicine ninny. I’d be out in 10 minutes if I took that, so my theory was I could trick my eyes into thinking they were being scratched. I can get close to my kids and act like I’m about to tickle them and they laugh hysterically every time. That should work on me too, right? It only worked once on my eyes. They caught on pretty quick to my trickery. Then it finally hit me what was causing this as I was still fake scratching in the kitchen. I screamed, “butt wipes!” My husband watched the scene, quietly eating his cereal. He didn’t know what I’d done it. He didn’t understand the actions and strange outburst of this wild hair, pj wearing, swollen face, frantic person before him. He never said a word, but I could see him internally questioning his decisions in life. For now as I write this, they’re still swollen and they still itch and I’m still refraining from taking a brillo pad to them and I’m still hoping it will ease up soon. In case you’re ever sleep deprived and desperate to rid yourself of marshmallow eyes, remember these wise words, use butt cream (wipes) on your butt and eye cream on your eyes. Butts and eyes can’t handle the same treatment.

You’re welcome.

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Published by Mommy With a Side of Me

I'm a coffee drinking, daily praying, ocean loving, husband kissing, always learning mommy. I write for fun. I share in case there's anyone out there than can relate, because it's always more fun when we don't feel alone. I mean, we're all in this together just doing the best we can!
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